Today’s bike in Harlingen was a mixture of bike trails and roads. The Bike trails and some of the roads were new to me. It was great exploring the trails after entering from the US77/US83 northbound frontage road at Rangerville Road by the Sames Ford Dealer. I saw the entrance several times driving by and wondered what the trail was like. There wasn’t a lot of information on the internet and the City of Harlingen’s maps were out of date. I started the ride at 11:21 AM from where I’m staying. I debated about changing the tires on my Canyon Endurace CF 7 bike to the 700x35mm but decided to stick with the carbon rims and 700x28mm tires. This worked out well since the trails were asphalt though not always smooth. I rode east to a park where that trail ended. I didn’t expect the trail to in the river bottom and well below the grade of the surroundings. There a few climbs but nothing severe.

After leaving the trail on the west side of the freeway after coming to a closed section I encountered a large gold dog who chased me for about half a block. Fortunately he barked a lot but didn’t get close enough to bite. I used the Bolt computer map to find Rangerville Road. Earlier I looked on Google maps and saw Dixieland Road would take me north to Spur 54 where I could ride on part of the route from Saturday to Loop 499. There a couple of construction areas but traffic was light. The wind was strong as I rode on Loop 499. I took a new direction at N 25th Street to the west. There wasn’t much slowing the wind and it was hard pedaling. At one of the traffic lights I saw a sign for a trail but I didn’t know where it went so I stayed on N 25th. I took this street to avoid the sections of Loop 499 without a shoulder. N 25th had a shoulder until US77 Sunset Strip. I thought I was close to where I needed to turn west but it was farther. The traffic on US77 Sunset Strip was not too heavy and drivers gave me room. I don’t think this route was much better than Loop 499. I finished at 1:21 PM riding 23.33 miles.

Weather: Start 74 degrees, humidity 82%, dew point 68, wind S 23 mph; Finish 81 degrees, humidity 65%, dew point 68, wind S 22 mph gusts 30 mph.